Fieldwork photos

Lake coring in Michigan

twitter: @canlumibao

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In a nutshell

I am a plant evolutionary ecologist, studying the ecological and evolutionary processes driving variations in long-lived plants and their associated microbiomes, and how these variations impact their ability to respond to global environmental changes, including climate change. I use a diversity of approaches, ranging from field and laboratory experiments to cutting-edge techniques like metagenomics and ancient DNA, to show that long-lived plants are able to track large-scale historical environmental changes by maintaining high genetic diversity through ice age cycles, as well as contemporary environmental stressors via induced changes in their symbiont microbiomes.